In the first presentation of the Phenomenological Materialities panel, Ken Wilder in a paper entitled “The Immateriality of Titian’s Pesaro Altarpiece”, posed the question of how the seemingly ‘immaterial’ (cloud) could be represented (in a material medium, that of paint) so that it could serve as the ground (a material metaphor) for the ascendancy of the Virgin Mary from the material realm to the spiritual (‘immaterial’) realm. His talk was therefore densely allegorical, but allegorical as a mode of the critical relation, while also seeking to show that this seemingly ‘immaterial’ ground and this seemingly ‘immaterial’ destination are themselves grounded in the institution of the Catholic Church, which is…